Album Reviews

August 18, 1985|By Stephen Wigler Sentinel Music Critic

(5 star) The Horowitz Years, works by Chopin, Scriabin, Liszt, Schumann, Moszkowski, Rachmaninov and Horowitz, performed by pianist Vladimir Horowitz (CBS M3 37895): This handsomely boxed three-record set, which was issued on the occasion of the pianist's 80th birthday, collects some of the best performances Horowitz recorded for CBS between 1962 and 1973, years in which he was under contract to that label. The nature of the interpretations need very little in the way of introduction. The Chopin and Rachmaninov are played with demonic intensity, the Schumann is freewheeling and passionate and the Scriabin is poetically fevered and mysterious. One of the nicer things about Horowitz's years with CBS is that his playing showed relatively little of the personal indulgences and mannerisms that distorted his playing before and after the years covered by these recordings. CBS has remixed and remastered these performances and the recorded sound is far more satisfying, less shrill and more full-bodied, than in their original incarnations.